Shuhei Yoshida On EU vs US PSN Disparity: "You Should Be Careful What You Wish For"

With the likes of Counter-Strike: GO, Dyad and Closure still unavailable on the European PlayStation Store, many British gamers have been questioning the logic behind running PSN as a separate entity in different regions. However, Sony Worldwide boss Shuhei Yoshida has spoken out to suggest that this fragmented approach allows them to "cater to the needs of the market" in each region, and that "you should be careful what you wish for."

That said, he also admitted to owning three different PSN accounts.

“There are both positives and negatives in the current regional approach, and I admit I have 3 PSN IDs for Japan, US and Europe, ” Yoshida wrote in the PlayStation Blog comments.

“Managing multiple small countries with multiple languages is much more inefficient than managing a large single country," he continued. "You should be careful what you wish for. If you want all regions managed by one perspective, one view of the largest country, then you are not in for a good ride."

“Having strong regional representation with regional operation is a great thing to be able to cater to the needs of the market.”

We can see the logic in ensuring that each region is handled on-site, but we're not sure how stopping British PS3 owners from playing Counter-Strike: GO is catering to their needs, exactly. The fact that the American and European PlayStation stores require separate certification procedures is distinctly odd to say the least, and has stopped indie titles like Closure and Dyad from reaching an eager consumer base.

I think what people want is synchronised global releases, not global management. I agree with him, to some extent - looking at both the US and JPN stores (at least, before the update), I really prefer ours. That may well be a cultural thing.

major problem is patching as well, 3 months after USA release for something to hit EU/UK - summitted at the same time, developers release DLC and patches and the DLC hits before the patch - meaning the DLC does work properly.

MS no better - if not worse - with patching times.

Many customers moving to PC version of their indie games because they want to experience the content and great support of the Devs on titles in a reasonable time frame.